Laurence Reisman: Seigenthaler taught great First Amendment lessons

Chances are you know who the vice president is. I bet more than 4 in 10 of you ? about how many college students can name Joe Biden ? can get that answer quickly.

But how many freedoms from the Constitution's First Amendment can you recite quickly?

I'm not sure if it was the pressure of high-stakes testing or taking those freedoms for granted, but I sat in a room in Washington, D.C., and couldn't name all five. Many other editorial page editors at a small journalism seminar in 2005 could not name all five, either.

Enter Ken Paulson and John Seigenthaler. These two journalists put on a presentation that drilled the five freedoms into our heads.

Seigenthaler, who died the other day at 86, was as a longtime First Amendment advocate and educator. He founded the Newseum Institute's First Amendment Center in 1991 "with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values."

Earlier, he was founding editorial director of USA Today and pioneered a process I admire: publishing an opposing view alongside each editorial. Previously, he worked at the Nashville Tennessean for 43 years, retiring as its editor, publisher and CEO.

Paulson, his protégé, introduced Seigenthaler that day in 2005. Paulson talked about how Seigenthaler had taken time off from his job in Nashville to work for the U.S. Justice Department as an assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

The other day, Paulson, a former USA Today and Florida Today editor and president of the First Amendment Center, recalled one of the most defining moments of Seigenthaler's career.

"One day in 1961 ? Seigenthaler was brutally attacked with a pipe by Ku Klux Klansmen as he rushed to protect Freedom Riders arriving in Montgomery, Ala.," Paulson wrote. "The Klansmen left John in the street to die."

While Seigenthaler, working for Kennedy at the time, was not keen on violence, I imagine he would have defended the Klan's right to exercise three of the First Amendment's rights: free speech, to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Seigenthaler was a hard-charging editor who left great advice for journalists.

"Never stop writing, never stop trying to give perspective to the stories you cover, and never be intimidated," he told Bob Gilbert, a retired Associated Press writer, who recently praised Seigenthaler in a column.

But Seigenthaler will be remembered for his First Amendment advocacy. Don't forget its other two freedoms: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of ? the press."